Cyprus on the EU front line for asylum seekers

KOFINOU, Cyprus (AFP) — The island of Cyprus is now on the immigration frontline, since joining the European Union in 2004, it has the highest intake per capita of population of asylum seekers.

According to the United Nations, 11,000 applications are waiting to be processed. And more than 99 percent of those submitted in 2007 were rejected.

Rachel had never heard of the tiny divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus when she boarded a boat and made her escape from Nigeria, where she said she faced being forcibly circumcised.

Now more than two years later, the 24-year-old nurse and dozens of other refugees from Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Cameroon are stuck in a rural holding centre for asylum seekers, the only one of its kind in EU member Cyprus.

According to the United Nations, 11,000 applications are waiting to be processed. And more than 99 percent of those submitted in 2007 were rejected.

Cyprus also has an estimated 60,000 illegal immigrants, a financial and administrative burden for the small island which has been divided into Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities since the Turkish invasion of 1974.

In July the commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, told AFP that Cyprus "must be competent, fair, professional and quick" in dealing with asylum seekers.
Critics of the government bemoan the fact that only around 20 employees are charged with poring over the thousands of applications deposited by asylum seekers.

"It's not to the benefit of anyone to have cases pending for two to three years," said Emilia Strovolidou, Cyprus spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"Due to the fact that the life of the asylum applicant is at stake, the examination of an asylum application is a time-consuming procedure," she added.

"This factor, together with the big number of asylum applications pending, needs to be taken into consideration in deciding how many more eligibility officers should be recruited for this highly responsible task."

Rachel is among just 75 people allowed to stay at the Kofinou centre until her application is processed.
Co-funded by the European Union and the Cyprus government, the lone asylum centre is in the countryside amidst pine and olive trees south of the capital Nicosia.

The authorities have no immediate intention to open a second centre.

"We try to improve the system but we cannot afford the financial and administrative pressure without the help and the assistance of the European Union," Interior Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis told AFP.

Zoe Magou, who works at the centre, said the facility aims to provide asylum seekers "basic needs and protection."

"They are better here, in security, than sleeping in parks," she said.

Rachel said she left Nigeria because she did not want to undergo excision, or what the United Nations calls female genital mutilation -- a practice common in Africa where it is meant to preserve a girl's virtue and honour.

"Cyprus? I had never heard of it before coming here," said Rachel as she cooked pasta in a communal kitchen as other women washed dishes. Kofinou is reserved for women and families only.

"It is very boring here. It is a bit like a prison," she said. "But I will never go back to my country."

The centre's residents survive on a monthly government handout of 85 euros (around 130 dollars). Sometimes they can boost their income by earning 25 euros a day picking olives or tomatoes for local farmers.

Under Cypriot law, asylum seekers who have been on the island for six months are entitled to work in the agricultural sector, but they are banned from other activities.

"It is not easy but it is better here than in the city," said Betty, a 34-year-old asylum seeker from Cameroon who fled to Cyprus to escape what she said was a violent husband.
"Here we have food at every meal and the hospital is near," added Betty who has lived in Kofinou for the past year. "Here you feel good under your skin."

Most asylum seekers in Cyprus are from Syria, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, but according to the United Nations those who have received positive responses are migrants from the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Iran or even Turkey.

"A lot of migrants came for economic reaons and are told by traffickers to submit an application for asylum in order to prolong their stay, or stay permanently," said the chief of the asylum service, Makis Polydorou.
In May a delegation from the European parliament's committee on civil liberties and justice visited Cyprus and later blamed Turkey for the flood of immigrants crossing into the south from a porous UN-controlled ceasefire line.

"The majority of illegal immigrants or asylum-seekers who come here enter from the Turkish zone, and Turkey should be made responsible," delegation chief Martine Roure said after the visit.
The Cyprus interior minister says the European Union should do more to monitor the 180-kilometre (110-mile) UN-controlled Green Line that separates the Greek and Turkish communities.

"We demand support from the European Union in order to watch the Green Line and for pressure to be exercised upon Turkey," said Sylikiotis.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece. Total population in the government-controlled south was 760,000, according to a 2005 census.